Saturday, August 29, 2009
Physical goods replaced by representations
“The next killer app for the Internet is dematerialization.”
Bill St. Arnaud
I think this is the endgame
China now produces about 90% of the rare earth metals necessary for producing computer chips, electronics, batteries, etc.
Figure 1. Global rare earth element production (1 kt=106 kg) from 1950 through 2000, in four categories: United States, almost entirely from Mountain Pass, California; China, from several deposits; all other countries combined, largely from monazite-bearing placers; and global total. Four periods of production are evident: the monazite-placer era, starting in the late 1800s and ending abruptly in 1964; the Mountain Pass era, starting in 1965 and ending about 1984; a transitional period from about 1984 to 1991; and the Chinese era, beginning about 1991.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs087-02/
They have suddenly announced that they will cease exports.
This is an endgame move.
Honey bees may have been killed by virus infections
Colony collapse disorder may have been due to infection by one or more viruses.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Hell is the impossibility of reason
How do they train themselves to be so impervious to reality? It begins, I suspect, with religion. They are taught from a young age that it is good to have "faith" – which is, by definition, a belief without any evidence to back it up. You don't have "faith" that Australia exists, or that fire burns: you have evidence. You only need "faith" to believe the untrue or unprovable. Indeed, they are taught that faith is the highest aspiration and most noble cause. Is it any surprise this then percolates into their political views? Faith-based thinking spreads and contaminates the rational.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Confabulation getting worse
As things become more complicated by the day, one unanticipated effect that I am noticing with increasing frequency is an explosion of confabulation.
People do not actually bother to read a book or magazine article, but can go on for hours making up a plausible story about things they have never seen, people they have never met, and situations in which they have never been.
Saving energy can be be better than free
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124959929532112633.html
There are times when saving energy seems like a pie-in-the-sky expensive burden, but it really need not be so. In fact, it can be the best investment you can make.
In 1981, we installed a solar water heater for a total cost in current dollars of about 5,000 dollars. That has saved 30,000 dollars in electricity so far, and the unit is still working.
When it came time to reroof four years ago, instead of the usual tar paper shingle job that would have cost 25,000 dollars, we had an elastomeric coating applied that cost 12,000. That did not cost more money, it cost less... for something that had to be done.
The elastomeric coating has titanium oxide ceramic particles in it that reflect heat, so the roof does heat up, and the house is cool and comfortable without air conditioning. The test: If it is uncomfortably hot inside your house, but it is comfortable outside your house, the problem is the house... it is heating up. All you need to do is block the heat from entering to begin with.
Yes, LED lights are way too expensive and are not quite ready for prime time, but the warm white compact fluorescents are only a few dollars and work well. A 60 watt incandescent spotlight was replaced with an 11 watt compact fluorescent spotlight. Buy one and try it.
The point is, none of this cost more money, it cost less.
The solar water heater cuts about 1,000 dollars per year off the electric bill, for a return on the original 5,000 dollar investment of 20% per year.
The elastomeric roof saves 600 dollars per year.
A conventional roof would be 25,000 twice over 50 years, which would be 50,000 dollars over 50 years.
An elastomeric one is 12,000 the first time, and 2,000 every ten years for a pressure washing and touch up coat, which would be 20,000 dollars over 50 years. And that is not even taking into account the energy savings in reduced air conditioning costs. You would need a smaller air conditioning system, or none at all, and would use less electricity running it.
The difference is 30,000 dollars.
Over 50 years, doing these two things basically costs 80,000 dollars less to get the same thing... actually, something better. You would have to earn 160,000 dollars, and pay taxes of let's say about half, if you had an electric water heater and a regular roof instead of a solar water heater and an elastomeric roof, just to get the same thing.
So while I hope the Rocky Mountain Institute continues to make cutting edge breakthroughs in energy efficiency, and I am sure those advances will slowly trickle down to us all, in the meantime, there is a lot that can be done that is not unbelievably expensive but is in fact much cheaper.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Plants potted in peat moss may need to be repotted
It seems that some plants sold potted in peat moss may need to be repotted soon... some peat moss is treated with a chemical, and after a few months, the chemical is gone, and the peat moss turns into a sour anaerobic mess. I have had this happen, so I usually pull off most of the peat moss and repot in proper potting soil, preferably with a lot of crushed hardwood charcoal in it.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The purpose of the spleen
Very often, when an organ seems to be useless, it probably is under most circumstances. However, they may be a matter of life or death in certain circumstances encountered only rarely. For example, the appendix seems to be a reservoir for gut bacteria, which can be wiped out from time to time.
Researchers have now shown that the spleen is a reservoir for immune system cells called monocytes, and that in the event of serious trauma like a heart attack, gashing wound, or microbial invasion, the spleen will disgorge the monocytes into the bloodstream to tackle the crisis.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/science/04angier.html?_r=1&em
Monday, August 3, 2009
Effort can sometimes trump ability
“We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It’s the other way around. Effort can trump ability because relentless effort is in fact something rarer that the ability to engage in some finely tuned act...”
How David Beats Goliath: When underdogs break the rules
Malcolm Gladwell
Population bombs... better get nearly free energy quickly
What’s more interesting is that the overall number, whatever you choose, could be a red herring. Many population experts foresee the next few decades evolving in a way that is very different from the global-scale, catastrophic “population bomb” concept that caught hold in the 1960s.
What they depict is more like a dangerous scattering of cluster bombs, as the world splits into two types of countries: those with aging, shrinking populations, like Japan and much of Europe, and those regions, like most of Africa and parts of south Asia, still mired in poverty, disease, illiteracy or government dysfunction with resulting high birth and death rates.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/the-population-cluster-bomb/
Lightship!
This is really amazing. A little model propelled into the sky by pulses of laser light!
RPI Prof Leik Myrabo Lightcraft Research
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Ant mimicking spiders
I just had what I thought was a tiny ant fall off an orchid plant... I thought it was behaving strangely for an ant... and then it let itself down by silk and I realized it was a spider that really looked like a small black ant!
Behavior controlled biochemically to astonishing specificity
Spore biochemically controlling brain of ant:
Look for a vein on the underside of a leaf on the north side of the plant about 10 inches off the ground with 95% humidity and with a temperature of 70 to 90 degrees F, then chomp down on the vein in a death grip, and die.
They are not stupid; they are lying shills
"WE'VE got healthcare that is better than anywhere else in the world," boasted conservative US pundit Rush Limbaugh in an interview with Fox News on 23 July. Many politicians have been echoing this claim in recent days, as Congress debates reforming the nation's healthcare. Sadly, it is not true.
Anyone who believes them deserves what they get. Some people are just genetically stupid, and there is nothing you can do about them, so just give up and don't waste your time.
Right answer, wrong question
How can I reduce my risk of skin cancer? Don't expose yourself to the Sun or tanning beds.
This is the correct answer to the wrong question.
The right question is: How can I reduce my risk of dying?
The answer is: Expose yourself to the Sun or tanning beds for about 15 minutes at least once a week because it will produce Vitamin D and Vitamin D will reduce your risk of dying of cardiovascular diseases and other cancers.
Or take a Vitamin D supplement. People seem terrified of overdosing, but that is very difficult to do. What is in a pill does not come near to the amount produced by going to the beach, and there is no risk of skin cancer. I like sardines and yard work.
The 1,000 iu is reasonable.
Everything on the Net needs to be named rationally and dated
A decade ago, when you read something, it was usually pretty clear that it was recent. Now we have no idea. Every single post or file needs to have, if possible, a rational name rather than a string of nonsense letters, and needs to have a date!
Why does food in a can not spoil?
Many people think that food in a can does not spoil because there is no air in the can. This is not correct.
There is in fact air in cans when you open them.
The reason the food does not spoil is because it is sterile inside the can; that is, there are no living bacteria, fungi, or other organisms inside the sealed can. This is why even a pinprick hole will cause the can to spoil. It is not because air got inside, but because living organisms got inside.
Disturbingly, I have met professors teaching biology at universities who do not know this. This is explained in every introductory biology textbook.
(Economists: "What bubble? Markets are perfectly rational." People really are this incompetent and do not know basic things in their own fields.)
This is also the subject of a truly elegant experiment by Pasteur using swan-necked flasks with broth inside. The necks are very long, and the end points down and is open, but there is no way for bacteria or fungus spores to move up the neck against gravity. Although the soup inside has been exposed to the open air, since no living organisms could get to the broth, the broth was still sterile after years. If the neck were broken or microorganisms got in by other means such as being carried in by an insect, the broth would immediately start to spoil.
Air: Yes. Living organisms: No; food does not spoil.
Air: Yes. Living organisms: Yes; food spoils.
He exposed boiled broths to air in vessels that contained a filter to prevent all particles from passing through to the growth medium, and even in vessels with no filter at all, with air being admitted via a long tortuous tube that would not allow dust particles to pass. Nothing grew in the broths unless the flasks were broken open; therefore, the living organisms that grew in such broths came from outside, as spores on dust, rather than spontaneously generated within the broth. This was one of the last and most important experiments disproving the theory of spontaneous generation. The experiment also supported germ theory.[8]
Betelgeuse may go supernova!
Since it is 640 light years away, maybe it has already gone supernova!
Nobel Laureate Charles Townes announced evidence that 15 consecutive years of stellar contraction has been observed by UC Berkeley's Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) atop Mt. Wilson Observatory in Southern California. Reported on June 9, 2009, the star has shrunk 15% since 1993 with an increasing rate. The average speed at which the radius of the star is shrinking over the last 15 years is approximately 210 - 219 m/s (470-490 mph).[24]
According to the university, Betelgeuse's radius is about 5.5 A.U.s, and the star's radius has shrunk by a distance equal to half an astronomical unit, or about the orbit of Venus.[25] Some theorists[who?] have speculated that this behavior is expected for a star at the beginning of the gravitational collapse at the end of its life.[citation needed] The mass of Betelgeuse puts it in range to become a neutron star or possibly a black hole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse
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